4 ms·

You think a government can make inequality go away? Please give us one example

arcticbull 6y ago
Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. Ideal, of course not. Recommended? Definitely not. However, it's clear and self-evident that the US government allows wealthy people to keep their wealth. A wealth tax would solve that problem, for instance. Again, without advocating, I'm just saying that wealth and wealth inequality exist at the whim of the ruling class. I'm not sure I could come up with a counter-example that didn't involve a contrived crypto-ancap utopia. The fact that income and wealth inequality are different in different countries is proof in and of itself.
- jen20 6y ago
  > A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. This is an _incredibly_ rose-tinted view of the Soviet Union. I would suggest researching Waldsiedlung as a starting point.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Why would that be rose-tinted? I believe in the value of inequality, to a point. Where I disagree with the status quo is I don't think the top end should be effectively unlimited, and I think the bottom end should be a lot higher. However to say that government policy can't substantially reduce inequality is patently absurd. The government has the power to take things from people, every year, in taxes.
- kofejnik 6y ago
  > Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. You have no idea what you're talking about, just stop. Source: born in USSR
cycomanic 6y ago
That's a straw man, nobody asked that inequality should go completely away. The question is rather what is a healthy level of inequality and should the government work on increasing inequality. Most people under estimate the amount of inequality in the US, this [1] is an awesome video illustrating it. Also there is some interesting research on modelling inequality as a phase change process and that there exist some point of no return after which inequality only increases towards a oligarchy/plutogarchy without a revolution type event [2] [1] https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...
newen 6y ago
Easily? The US government has the capability to do massive wealth redistribution very easily in a couple of weeks if they wanted to.

Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. Ideal, of course not. Recommended? Definitely not. However, it's clear and self-evident that the US government allows wealthy people to keep their wealth. A wealth tax would solve that problem, for instance. Again, without advocating, I'm just saying that wealth and wealth inequality exist at the whim of the ruling class. I'm not sure I could come up with a counter-example that didn't involve a contrived crypto-ancap utopia. The fact that income and wealth inequality are different in different countries is proof in and of itself.

jen20 6y ago
> A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. This is an _incredibly_ rose-tinted view of the Soviet Union. I would suggest researching Waldsiedlung as a starting point.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Why would that be rose-tinted? I believe in the value of inequality, to a point. Where I disagree with the status quo is I don't think the top end should be effectively unlimited, and I think the bottom end should be a lot higher. However to say that government policy can't substantially reduce inequality is patently absurd. The government has the power to take things from people, every year, in taxes.
kofejnik 6y ago
> Sure, the Soviet Union. A government literally made inequality go away with the stroke of a pen. You have no idea what you're talking about, just stop. Source: born in USSR

cycomanic 6y ago

That's a straw man, nobody asked that inequality should go completely away. The question is rather what is a healthy level of inequality and should the government work on increasing inequality. Most people under estimate the amount of inequality in the US, this [1] is an awesome video illustrating it. Also there is some interesting research on modelling inequality as a phase change process and that there exist some point of no return after which inequality only increases towards a oligarchy/plutogarchy without a revolution type event [2] [1] https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...

newen 6y ago

Easily? The US government has the capability to do massive wealth redistribution very easily in a couple of weeks if they wanted to.